The Ball I Threw While Playing in the Park
by theorclair
Summary: Martin Crieff and Sherlock Holmes wake up in each other's bodies. Chaos ensues.
1. Chapter 1

For a prompt on the Cabin Pressure kink meme ( . ?thread=3027215#cmt3027215) : Martin wakes up one morning about five inches taller with dark curly hair and everyone thinking he's an arse.

Sherlock wakes up the same morning to some insufferable woman (divorced, small dog, two sisters, lives with her son) telling him he needs to fly a plane.

(Bonus points for Sherlock having to fake a relationship with some smug bastard called Douglas, and Martin having to pretend to be in love with John, who's a lovely chap but so very boring, can he have his smarmy boyfriend back now, please.)

Title is from Dylan Thomas' "Should Lanterns Shine":

_The ball I threw while playing in the park_  
><em>Has not yet reached the ground.<em>

Unbetaed and unbritpicked. If you want to volunteer for either please do so.

In his defense, it was early in the morning. True, it wasn't much of one, since there were about a hundred other things he should have noticed, but it was something. No matter when Martin woke up, he had fifteen minutes of haze to work through before coming fully awake. And he'd woken up in so many different hotels over the years he was used to his surroundings being unfamiliar. That really wasn't an excuse, but it was something.

He had noticed something as soon as he woke up - the room smelled different. Most cheap hotels smelled like cigarette smoke, must, and roach spray, and this room only had a faint spicy odor. He even half noticed that the bathroom didn't smell of mildew. It didn't bother him that the shampoo and soap were unfamiliar; he was used to that. Once he was ready to get out of the shower he noticed the towels were nicer than those hotels usually had, and looked ridiculously expensive. Still, a towel was a towel, and he dried himself off without thinking much about it.

It was only when he turned to look at himself in the bathroom mirror that he screamed.

* * *

><p>Sherlock knew he wasn't in the same place he'd fallen asleep in before he even opened his eyes. The room smelled like stale cigarette smoke and pesticide. The mattress was lumpy and uneven. And furthermore, the amount of heat that the person next to him was generating indicated whoever it was was far bigger than John. He kept his eyes shut for another thirty seconds, trying to figure out as much as he could about his surroundings without them. The smell and the mattress indicated a cheap hotel, if one that wasn't in the business of unrespectable guests (none of those hotels would have bothered to spray for bugs). The person next to him was a large man, sleeping on his side. He seemed accustomed to sharing a bed with someone, possibly through travel but more likely through romantic relationships. Not enough information to indicate which of the two had been present before Sherlock had replaced his bed mate.<p>

He opened his eyes. The ceiling was definitely one of a shabby hotel room. He looked to the left and saw an electrical outlet with three small holes in a row. So he was in Germany, then. He looked to the right and saw a large man with salt and pepper hair sleeping facing the other wall. There was nothing else to easily see and so Sherlock got out of the bed. It was then he realized something had happened that was more severe than just being moved. He was four or five inches shorter than he usually was. Time to make his way to a mirror, then.

The small bathroom had an equally small mirror perched over the sink. His head - or at least the head of someone - barely came up to the bottom. His hair was now a bright flaming red; he now had green/hazel eyes. And at least an entire face full of freckles. He looked down and saw he now wore pajamas with airplane patterns on them. A quick check of the rest of the bathroom revealed nothing helpful, so Sherlock stepped back into the hotel room.

Clearly he couldn't have undergone such drastic bodily changes overnight, nor could he have gotten to Germany in that period of time unless there was an airplane involved. The only explanation for this had to be that he had swapped bodies with the ginger man. Or more precisely they had swapped consciousnesses. True, such a thing only existed in theory, but he couldn't have gotten into someone else's hotel room in Germany while also being drastically physically modified in any theory at all. His first instinct was to ring John, but looked at the one clock in the room and saw it was five-thirty here. He'd still be asleep, then, and the ginger man (if he was truly in Sherlock's body) wouldn't wake up for several hours; there had been a run of cases until very recently.

Sherlock walked over to the table the clock sat on. The only thing on it besides the clock was a battered wallet. The size of it indicated it belonged to whoever his body did. He opened it and found one five pound note, a torn paystub with "get more laundry detergent" written on it, and a driving license, reversed so he could only see that the man was certified in the UK to drive a car, a minibus, and a motorbike. He flipped it over and was faced with himself in his new body. The man's name was Martin Crieff. Nothing else was there. The pay stub indicated he wasn't paid a lot, but he must have had some job that required travel. The other man was probably a co-worker; if this Martin Crieff had a lot of one-night stands he would be carrying a great deal more money in his wallet, if nothing else.

The room had a closet door and it occured to Sherlock that he could probably find the man's work clothes. He opened the door and found two uniforms hanging in there, one neat and one worn. Stripes on the cuffs. Oh, they were pilots. That made him pause. Sherlock knew about more things than most people gave him credit for (besides John), but that did not include flying an airplane. The uniforms didn't have any logos he could recognize, so it had to be a smaller company, but even then he knew anything they wanted him to do would be beyond him.

This was clearly going to be more complicated then he originally thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Martin blinked, or at least it felt like he did, and the person in the mirror blinked as well. It wasn't him, though. It couldn't be him. His eyes weren't gray. His hair wasn't long or black. And he wasn't _tall_. He raised his hand, and the figure in the mirror raised his.

Maybe it was a prank.

When he took another look around the bathroom, he knew it had to be more than that. This looked like a real bathroom, one in a flat. How had he gotten here?

He heard the door open. "Sherlock?" an unfamiliar voice said. Seconds later, a strange man stepped into the bathroom. Martin remembered he was only wearing a towel, and he would have been a lot more embarrased if it had been his body. And had the man called him Sherlock? He didn't think that was a name anyone had besides the character.

"Is something wrong?" the man said. He was a little shorter than Martin usually was, with dark blond hair and lines under his eyes.

"I'm not me," Martin quickly replied, and cursed himself internally for saying it. Just like him to put his foot in his mouth.

The other man looked at him with a look that was both perplexed and long-suffering. "What?" he said.

"When I went to sleep I was in a hotel in Germany and I woke up here and I'm suddenly taller and everything is different and I've never seen you before in my life." Well, if putting his foot in his mouth hadn't been bad enough, adding another one wouldn't make it any worse.

The man stepped past him and began to search a few areas for reasons Martin couldn't figure out. "If you've taken something just tell me."

"Help," Martin could only come up with.

That, of all things, was the bit that widened the man's eyes and made him step away. He looked over Martin in the strange man's body one more time and said "My god. You're telling the truth."

"I wouldn't make something like that up. Wouldn't be smart enough to come up with it. Do you have a phone I can use to ring my boss? She's going to be mad enough now."

The man's whole bearing softened. "Come out of here and get something to wear. I'll lend you my mobile in a minutes."

Martin stepped out of the bathroom and into the hall, and then into the nearby bedroom. He self-consiously began going through the clothes in the wardrobe. Almost all of them were made of silk or other fine fabric and looked like the sort of thing that would cost him a year's salary. He finally settled on a white button-down shirt and dark blue trousers that didn't look quite as costly as the other clothes. That done, he headed back to the hallway where the other man was standing. "Come on, I'll bring you into the sitting room." He led Martin down the hall and into a comfortable looking room with two chairs and a sofa. Martin sat gingerly on the sofa. The man took a seat on one of the chairs and said "Well, that proves you're telling the truth. He'd never look so uncoordinated."

Martin assumed "him" was whoever normally resided in this body. "I'm not used to being so tall."

"What's your name?"

"Martin Crieff."

"Hi Martin, I'm John Watson."

Martin looked at him for a second before dissolving into laughter. _That_ explained why he'd been called "Sherlock" before. That wasn't his name, just an apparently running joke about being unfortunately named the same thing as a fictional character.

John gave him a cautious look, and it was enough to halt the laughter in his throat. After Martin had composed himself, he went on. "You said you wanted to ring your boss?"

"Yes. If whoever's supposed to be here is now me, she's going to throw a fit."

"You weren't at home when it happened, then. You said something about Germany?" John reached for a pencil and paper from a nearby table.

"We'd flown to Germany. Frankfurt - I'm a pilot. I was last in my hotel room."

John wrote something down on the paper. "When did you go to sleep?"

"Around ten-thirty. We had to fly back early tomorrow so I wanted to stay in hours."

"Was anyone else in the room with you then?"

"Just my - first officer." This John Watson might be the modern type who wouldn't flinch at two men in a relationship, but Martin was not willing to take that chance.

"Did you notice anything that seems unusual now?"

"No."

John nodded, and put down the paper and pencil. "Do you want to ring your boss now?"

"Yes," said Martin, feeling dread even as he did. Carolyn was the type who would ignore the weirdness of the situation and just be upset that whoever was in his body now didn't know how to fly a plane. Before he could dwell on this, John placed a mobile in his hand. Still feeling dread but knowing he couldn't put it off, he dialed Carolyn's number. Instead of ringing, it emitted a shrill noise and told him that the number was no longer in service. He ended the call and rang the number again. The same thing happened. Now even more worried, he wondered who to call instead. Douglas had left his mobile at home and Arthur had a bad habit of not charging his. Could he call Herc? Martin knew Carolyn's landline number, but he had never used it before. Herc might not even be at the house in the first place. He dialed it anyway. This time the mobile rang twice before he heard a sleepy "Hello?" Unfortunately it wasn't anyone he recognized, and certainly wasn't Herc.

"Wrong number," he muttered and ended the call. Just to make sure, he fiddled with the mobile for a minute and eventually brought up a list of numbers called. The last two were exactly how he remembered Carolyn's number. Could it just be he wasn't remembering it right? If he rang the directory, at least he'd be able to find out. He put the number in, and when the person on the other end answered, he said "I'd like to look up a number."

"What's the last name?" said the woman on the other end.

"Knapp-Shappey."

"And the town?"

"Fitton."

"What's the postcode? I'm not familiar with a Fitton."

Martin's stomach turned to ice. "I can't remember it off the top of my head. Fitton Airfield? 42 Adams Lane? Airport FTN?"

"Is this a joke?" the woman at the other end said, sounding irritated.

"No," he said quickly before disconnecting. Out of the corner of his eye he could see John moving around in the kitchen. "Is there a computer I can use?" he asked, hoping that John wouldn't ask too many questions.

"The laptop by the chair I was sitting in before," John said back. Martin shuffled over to the chair and sat down. He felt more dread now then he had at any point in his life, even before his seventh exam sit or his dad's funeral. Hesitantly he pulled up the browser and typed in the URL to the site Arthur had so proudly designed.

URL not found.

He pulled up a search engine and typed "fitton" into it. A ton of results came up, but nothing about the town.

Suddenly the computer seemed very distant. He felt like he was falling into a pit. His ears rang. Everything familiar was gone. His job, his friends, his home, his body, his life couldn't be found.

In that weird distant feeling he was sort of aware of falling to the ground. Then nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock wanted more information, and he wasn't ready for a confrontation with the sleeping man yet, so he showered, put on the unfamiliar uniform, and left the room. The hallway leading to the elevator was just as dismal as the rest of the place. No one seemed to be around this early in the morning. He descended in the elevator alone, and stepped out into the lobby. A glance at a stack of newspapers indicated he was in Frankfurt. A sign nearby indicated that breakfast was being served in a nearby room. Sherlock suspected it was complimentary, but the sign didn't say, and in any event the condition of the hotel made eating there decidedly unappealing. Still, there might be co-workers of the man whose body he was in in there. It would be best to at least start looking for them; the explanations would take a long time and he didn't want to ring John until they were done.

The not very big room had a buffet table in the middle and two tables with long benches flanking it. Only two people were in the room, a woman in her sixties and a young-looking man, sitting next to each other. The woman had a mug of coffee or tea in front of her, the man had a plate piled high with hardboiled eggs, sausages, a hefty hunk of bread and a large glass of chocolate milk.

"You can buy boxes of butterflies online, and you can let them out at the end! They show pictures and everything!" The man's enthusiasm radiated through every word.

"And how long would a set of butterflies last in February in England, pray tell?" the woman said in a weary tone. It clicked then in Sherlock's head they were mother and son.

His face fell. "I suppose that wouldn't be very nice for them." He paused. "And if Herc thinks it's mean to eat animals I don't think he'd like seeing some butterflies die on his -"

"Tax break arrangement day," the woman said before he could finish. So the woman was getting married. At least one previous abusive relationship, most likely also one that fell apart over differences, probably about having children. Thinks that if she talks about it in non-emotional terms it will be easier to deal with when it fails, although she isn't consciously aware of that. The man she's engaged to would be more than happy to give her a large wedding but respects her wishes. "I think you've given enough helpful suggestions about it."

"You're still sure we can't have it at the airfield?"

"It doesn't seem the best place, no."

"But GERT-I could come!"

"GERT-I is not a person. Remember my rule: people only. No dogs, no airplanes."

"But if you had it at the airfield it could be a business expense!"

The woman gave him an exasperated look. "Not everything at the airfield is a business expense."

He looked confused. "Then how come you could pay off the bills on the house? Didn't the will say all the money was just for MJN?"

"Yes. The mortgage was paid off by a one-time bonus to the CEO. Me. Now the house is ours, and we can continue to conduct the business the money was so generously earmarked for." So, their business had once been in financial trouble, only saved by someone, probably a client, dying and willing them a large sum of money. The woman didn't look like the type who threw money away without thinking,

Suddenly, the man turned in Sherlock's direction. "Skip! You're up early!" Sherlock quickly went over it in his head: Skip, probably short for Skipper, captain, he must be addressing whoever is supposed to be in this body. He headed over to sit at the table, not saying anything yet. The man smiled broadly at him, his hazel eyes shining, clearly delighted to see him. "We were just talking about the w - I mean, Mum and Herc. The thing." He pointed towards his plate. "Have some eggs and sausages!"

The woman shook her head. "Arthur, while I'm sure you find them edible, I'm not sure that it's the best idea to poison the pilot who will fly us back to Fitton." These were indeed his co-workers. Sherlock made a noncommittal noise. He would have to tell them eventually if they didn't notice themselves; he was completely incapable of flying a plane to Fitton, wherever that was.

The man - Arthur - looked undaunted. "He can have some of the bread. Didn't that passenger we took to Dublin last year say that people all over the world have bread with their breakfasts? Except she said they ate pickled vegetables in Japan. I'm not sure I'd want to eat anything pickled then. It's too sour, and breakfast should be happy and sweet."

"Is that the passenger that had you in hysterics?"

"Yes! She told me that story about the airline that used to sell seats in the bathroom. You have to admit that was funny." He began to giggle at the memory.

An unfamiliar voice sounded from behind where Sherlock sat. "Oh yes. Is that the one who, when she found out Martin didn't get paid, asked if he ate a lot at parties?" It was a male voice, deep. Of course, the man from the hotel room.

"Yeah. She was funny, wasn't she?" He gestured towards the person behind Sherlock. "Sit down, Douglas."

The man sat down, on the other side of the woman. "Is there a reason you're reminiscing about that flight?"

"She said that most people in the world have some bread with breakfast, and Mum didn't think Skip should eat the sausages they have."

"How wise of Carolyn. I believe I'll refrain from them myself." Carolyn, Douglas, Arthur, and his body was named Martin. That little bit of information would make things easier.

"But now Skip gets a real paycheck, and everything. I wish I could tell her that he can eat anywhere he wants now. That's nice, even if it is sad he got that because Mr. Birling died. Even if we got it. It's like one of those movies where someone dies but makes sure everyone they know is happy before that. So you're happy and sad at the end at the same time."

"Yes, the tragedy of a rich old man who rewrites his will to leave all his money to the airdot that's kind enough to fly him to his rugby game, because he doesn't want to leave it to his wife. Positively Shakespearean," Douglas said dryly. He shot Sherlock a look that was presumably loaded with meaning, but since Sherlock hadn't met him until today, he couldn't tell precisely what the look was supposed to mean. Fond exasperation, as far as Sherlock could infer from his body language.

"Oh, we were talking about the - thing Mum and Herc were going to do." As soon as Arthur said that, someone's mobile rang. It had to be Carolyn's, because she got up and moved towards the door, pulling a mobile out from the bag she took with her. "Mum said no butterflies. Only people." He blinked, oddly enough.

"No, Arthur. We discussed this before." Douglas had clearly had this conversation before.

"But it would be brilliant! Extra-brilliant!"

"Not after only six months. No."

Before Arthur could respond to that, Carolyn came over. "All right, team useless. If we can be at the airport in an hour we can leave early. Arthur, I have your bag with me. Martin, I don't see yours anywhere." She gave Sherlock a stern look.

"I've got it," Douglas said.

"Then let's go."

Within ten minutes they were all in a cab on the way to the airport. Sherlock still hadn't said a word to any of them, but no one seemed to think this was unusual. It was a short trip, and with the hassle of going through customs and security, no one tried to talk to Sherlock at all. He knew he was going to have to say something soon, although he wondered how everyone hadn't noticed that something was off. Perhaps this Martin often acted strangely.

Things reached a head when Sherlock realized that they were going out on the airfield to whatever plane they had. The group stopped in front of a very old-looking airplane that had clearly been given several touchings-up recently. The customer who had left them money must have left a considerable amount, and the company had been hard-up until that point; no one would not give a salary to one of the few people making the company work without financial crisis. Carolyn, the apparent owner, seemed unlikely to spend more than she could afford; therefore the debts must have been early in the business and related to poor deals. Either she had never run a business before or had additional difficulty from some outside source. A divorce, most likely.

He was so lost in his deductions that he didn't hear the first command. "Martin, I told you to do the walk around." Carolyn looked at him strangely.

Sherlock could obviously walk around the plane, but he wouldn't have a clue what he was supposed to be looking for. "I'm Sherlock Holmes," came out of his mouth before he could think about it.

The woman burst into laughter. "Yes you are. Do the walk around and then get in the cockpit with Dr. Watson."

"Is this a new game you and Douglas are playing?" Arthur asked with interest.

"No, I'm not your pilot. I'm Sherlock Holmes."

"You didn't eat any of those sausages, did you?" The look on her face became even stranger.

"No. I appear to have woken up as someone else."

The commotion was enough to bring the other pilot, Douglas, out of the plane. "What's going on? Can you all not get enough of Frankfurt-Hahn?"

"Your captain appears to have suffered a head injury or ingested a hallucinogen. He won't do the walk around and insists he is Sherlock Holmes."

"The one in the books or the one in the old movies? Or the new movies? Or maybe the BBC series from the Eighties?" He came to stand next to them.

"The one who lives with the blogger," Sherlock said in exasperation.

"Martin, come with me." Douglas took his arm and lead him into the plane. He then strong-armed Sherlock to the cockpit. "What are you doing? If this is some sort of prank, can you at least wait until we get in the air?"

"I'm not Martin. I'm Sherlock Holmes. I went to sleep in my room and woke up here in someone else's body. Is it not obvious?" Perhaps this Douglas wasn't the quickest one in the room.

"All right. If you want to play games I'll be the captain for this flight."

Sherlock took off the uniform jacket he was wearing and handed it to Douglas without hesitation. "That would probably be best for everyone involved."

Douglas didn't take the jacket. Instead he said: "I'm going to ask you a few questions, then. The cockpit voice recorder records for what minimum period of time?"

Sherlock shrugged. "No idea."

"The deadliest airline disaster occurred in what country?"

He vaguely recalled something involving two planes colliding. "Somewhere in Europe?"

"The number of passengers required to carry a flight attendant?"

"You're asking the wrong person."

The look on his face went from suspicion to worry. "What was the first navigational aid to be installed on most airplanes?"

"I don't have the slightest clue," Sherlock said, hoping the man would finally get the point. He looked at Sherlock for a few moments and turned to leave.

"Carolyn, we have a problem," Sherlock heard Douglas say as he stepped out of the cockpit.

AN: I'm sorry for being so late in posting this. I have five writing projects I'm working on now, so updates might be a little slow.

The "eat a lot at parties" thing is an obscure reference that I still hope someone gets.

The airline Arthur mentions that used to sell seats in the bathroom is real: in the Seventies the Russian airline Aeroflot did just that.


End file.
